Tools of Apologetics 1.21.3
How to use Apologetics
Stages In An Apologetic Confrontation
The word "confrontation" currently upsets many, including Christians, because activities like taking a stand, showing the difference, separation, etc. are anathema to the present generation steeped in Moral Relativism. However, the Scripture commands God’s children to discriminate between good and evil and to confront and oppose evil. Thus the Christian Apologist should be ready for confrontation, but in the spirit of meekness and humility. With that in mind, the Apologist should take the following steps:
1- Assess The Opposition: Every battle requires strategy and Apologetics is no different. Success requires that we launch a counter-offensive that will be proportional to the offensive. Also, we must assess the terrain and climate. What is conducive to those who oppose the Christian faith might be totally hostile and harmful to the Christian Apologist. For example, an irreverent and jeering crowd would highly suit a critic of the Christian faith, but would not allow the apologist to move an inch. Any attempt at defending the Christian faith would be met by the mockery of an irreverent and uninterested crowd and the net result would be loss. Only exceptionally capable speakers with unusual powers of rhetoric might be able to silence such a crowd for a short period of time. A shrewd move by the opponents can shatter this peace and attention in moments and therefore position . When Scripture asks believers not to cast their pearls in front of swine, it is a warning that an unworthy recipient might not only reject good counsel, but might even turn against the speakers to tear them to pieces.
Apologists should check the opposition (individuals or groups) to see if the spirit of inquiry is there, or whether they are at least willing to listen carefully and peacefully. They should also check if they have the capacity to appreciate the subject proposed for discussion. Even the most ignorant person can ask questions the answers to which they cannot understand. Also, Christian Apologetics is made up of a broad spectrum of topics that range from the most simple to extremely complex and specialized topics. They should also check if officially designated moderators would be available if needed in a large group. In smaller groups they should check for similar factors that would be conducive to an open and honest discussion.
Whether the opponent is an individual, a small group, or a crowd, Apologists should be wary of situation that may be hostile or an atmosphere that would promote mockery. They should also assess the energy, courage and time needed to face the question effectively. They should never forget that unfinished discussion and partially answered (or unanswered) questions will always hurt Christian Apologists by creating a false impression that they were defeated in the argument, or that they were not able to rise to the occasion.
2- Assess The Opponent: In addition to the atmosphere and opposition, the nature, attitude and intellectual capability/training of opponents play a substantial role in Apologetics. For example, if they are trained persons, but inclined towards mocking the opponent, the dialogue or debate cannot succeed and it would be better to drop the idea of discussion. The most important factor to check in critics is whether they are honest. They might be biased towards evolution, rationalism, or other critical viewpoints. But if they are basically honest and willing to discuss in a spirit of inquiry, the discussion will in all likelihood prove fruitful. But if they are dishonest or evasive, then no meaningful discussion will ever be possible. If the opponent is highly trained, inclined to a critical view, but basically honest, the discussion will be fruitful. However. Apologists should also be of a reasonable intellectual calibre, else they will only be able to put up a shallow show. I have seen many Christian Apologists who have a good rhetorical ministry among intellectually average Christians. The same people collapse like a house of cards when they face an intellectually bright and trained opponent.
Thus before deciding to get into a public discussion or debate, Apologists should make sure that their opponent is sincere. If not , the results will be catastrophic. Similarly they should make sure that they can meet their opponents at their intellectual level. If not, it will only bring shame to the Christian community. These conditions can be relaxed somewhat in a private discussion and debate, but that does not mean that Christian Apologists can become reckless.
3-Know The Topic: Christian Apologetics has to deal with an unbelievably large range of Subjects, also from the simplest to the most complex technical levels. Consequently, it is not possible for any Apologist to face all the possible opponents and all the critical topics. The field is as diverse as any field of study. Thus, at least in any public discussion, they should know in advance the topics which their opponent is going to present, lest they be embarrassed and lose face.
For example, consider that people with an exceptionally good background in Philosophy might be ciphers in Physical Sciences. They might have a great image as thinkers, and therefore their loyal followers might want them to debate a rationalist who is an empirical scientist. The followers might not understand the difference between Philosophy and Empirical Sciences. For them an argument is just a debate in which any brilliant person ought to be able to reply. However, this kind of discussion or debate would be disastrous for Christians and Christian Apologists. Rarely only can a Philosophy major handle the technical arguments of a Physics or Archaeology major and vice versa.
I remember two incidents. The first involved a British missionary, the author of an extremely popular apologetics book, who was highly in demand for his lectures. He had the image of an undefeatable Apologetics Superman everywhere, including India. Thus an Evangelical Christian organization arranged his programmes in some of the top Colleges and Universities in India.
Professors, researchers and intellectuals were invited in masses and also given a challenge to come and be undone by this bomb from the Christian community. Obviously, the academic community came in large numbers with great expectations of meeting an intellectual giant who was going to silence all their learned arguments against the Christian faith. Ten minutes into his first lecture, and most of them (who had been teachers all their lives) realized that the man was shallow beyond belief. While he was good at rhetoric, there was no substance in his lectures. The question-answer session turned out to be a disaster and he fumbled questions an average science-student could have answered with confidence. Here was a big cipher, blown up even larger by all that propaganda by Christians who did not realize that they were going to pit an expert in rhetoric against experts in science. All subsequent programs in Indian educational institutions were hastily canceled and he was promptly shifted to small-group presentations of Christian apologetics among exclusively evangelical and thoroughly discipled Christians.
The second case involved that of an Engineer-turned-Apologist, but with no background in philosophy. Worse, while he was a skilled orator, he had never had any formal training or reading in Christian Apologetics. His deepest acquaintance with this topic consisted of reading the latest best-sellers written by many journalist-cum-apologists, who were able to captivate readers with words, but who never touched the core of the issues. Nor did they ever grapple with the serious problems of Rational Apologetics. Compared to the missionary we mentioned earlier, this man was invited to speak in a more informal manner to groups of 50 to 150 seekers, most with a university background. However, this small-group informal setup created an atmosphere that none of the organizers had anticipated. Here the audience felt much more easy about asking questions and grilling the Apologist without any hurry, and this turned out to be the undoing of it all. Once the questions become serious, the Christian started fumbling. He also refused to address the questions. Instead he would simply ask counter-questions.
Finally some of the frustrated people stood up and told him to his face that they would any time prefer an ignorant Christian over a dishonest one. On both the occasions the Apologists were skilled speakers and committed defenders of the Christian faith, but only in a limited range of subjects. Neither they, nor the organizers realized the perils when the opposition came from learned people in subjects which the Apologists were not competent to handle. Christian Apologists should be careful to speak and challenge people only in those areas which they have as expertise. If a Neurosurgeon is not embarrassed when he refuses to speak on Pediatrics, a Christian philosopher should not be embarrassed by refusing to debate topics related to Physics.
4. Know The Size Of The Hat: Though Christians see specialization everywhere and though they would not go to a General Practitioner when only a Super Specialist would do, they quickly forget this principle when it comes to Christian Ministry. In such meetings they try to make the hat of a single size fit everyone. This is seen when they invite highly trained Christian philosophers or scientists, asking them to present the latest Christian Evidence from their areas of specialization and then invite everyone with an IQ of 30 and above to come and "enjoy" the lecture. Worse, often the majority of the audience will be made up of people in this low-IQ or low-education category, and then everyone insists that the presentation in the area of their expertise should be understandable to this crowd. In other words, the hat actually meant for the experts should now be made to fit every single person in the auditorium. This is simply not possible.
I had a sad experience of this type a few years ago. I was invited by a very large church in a cosmopolitan town. The meeting was held in the banquet hall of a large hotel and it was attended by professors, research scholars and medical doctors from the nearby educational institutions. My lecture was well received and there was a demand for more lectures.
The organizers announced their pleasure and held the next meeting in their church on the assumption that this would enable them to attract these learned contacts to the church. Unknown to the organizers, some enthusiasts announced the meeting to the members of the church also. The next evening, three fourths of the church was packed with labourers and families: men, women and even children. At the back was my target audience, the university crowd. To make matters worse, some of the church people insisted that my apologetic presentation should be translated into the local language so as to benefit the labourers and families. The best English to Tamil translator available on that day had never had anything to do with academics and had never read even an article on Christian Apologetics.
The result was disastrous. I was supposed to address the learned crowd, but the stupidities and antics of my translator so distracted everyone that all were frustrated. Worse, the labourers for whom this compromise was made did not grasp an iota of the lecture. Every single person, including me, had depression. The only happy person was the naive translator who had no inkling of how thoroughly he had messed up everything.One size has never served everyone, more so in Christian Apologetics. To scholars it needs to be a scholarly talk and to ordinary people it needs to be a popular talk. However, if an organizer tries to mingle them, the Apologist should not accept that recipe for disaster.
5- Assess The Presentation: Public Apologetics can range from very simple and friendly lectures up to extremely hostile and technical presentations. Each one requires a different strategy and even mood. While very simple and friendly lectures from critics can be handled in a similar fashion, most critics and criticisms require a more serious confrontation and a more calculated strategy.
What’s important is to decide what approach will yield the best results. This will vary with speaker, situation and topic. At times a direct and immediate refutation might suffice, while at other times presenting a solid case first and then giving a quick and fast refutation might be a better strategy. Experience is a good teacher here, as it is in every practical field, and gradually Apologists will develop an intuition about all this. Their chief aim is not to win an argument, but rather to present a clear and convincing defense of the Christian faith, so as to lead people with questions and doubts into conviction and growth. Refute where refutation is needed, and expound where such detail is needed. Quotations, statistics, news and even stories and humour should be used at appropriate places in the right proportion. However, Apologists should not leave it at that. They should consolidate their position by giving the audience a glimpse of the very big field of Christian Apologetics. They should also guide them to resources in this field.
6- Tell Them Of The World Of Apologetics: Though Christian Apologetics is a subject as old as the Christian faith itself, not everyone knows this. One can safely assume that the majority of one’s listeners will be totally ignorant of it. Most of them will be under the false impression that this is the first time that these questions have been asked and also that perhaps nobody has the answers. This causes them to continue in fear even if this particular session was helpful. Thus Apologists must definitely give them a glimpse of the wider world of Christian Apologetics.
They should tell them something about the Jewish Christian Fathers of bygone eras who defended the faith orally and in writing. They should tell about the current situation. At present more than 5000 small and large booklets and books related to Christian Apologetics are in print. There are at least two dozen technical and five times as many popular periodicals on some aspect or other of reason and revelation. There are several professional societies of Christian Apologists where only professionally qualified Apologists may become members. Then there are at least a thousand organizations, small and large, that work in Christian Defense.
What’s more, there are at least a thousand high quality websites that offer information related to Christian Evidences. Among them they freely offer thousands of book-length manuscripts and tens of thousands of smaller but substantial articles. There are also over two dozen web-based Apologetics journals on the net. Once Apologists have given them a glimpse of these things, the confidence-factor of sincere inquirers takes a massive leap. The assurance that they are not the only people asking questions, and that thousands of highly qualified scientists and philosophers are there to answer these questions helps them to face critics with confidence.
7- Introduce The Resources: Though an unbelievably large collection of resources is available, most inquirers have no clue about the quantity or sources of materials. Thus Christian Apologists should point to the sources from where they can obtain more material. This is essential for the success of the apologetic mission and there are at least two reasons for that.
First, there is none who has one and only one doubt. Attacks against the Christian faith come in clusters and therefore the doubts also form a cluster. Just because one or two doubts from a cluster are solved in a given lecture, it does not wipe out the doubts that remain. People need their doubts to be solved up to a certain threshold (say, as much as 70% of all doubts) before they feel reasonably confident about the Christian faith. Unless solutions reach this threshold, these doubts keep gnawing at their faith and confidence. Thus a single exposure to Apologetics is usually not sufficient to fully strengthen and stabilize people. They need to be exposed repeatedly through conversation, lectures, books and electronic resources till they reach the level where they cannot easily be shaken.
Second, attacks against the Christian faith are not a one-time event. On the contrary, they are a continuing process which keeps nagging at people. Old attacks often put on new clothes and seemingly new attacks will keep cropping up. Thus ongoing exposure to current apologetic resources that tackle both old as well as contemporary attacks will be needed to strengthen a person.
The world of the Internet has done seekers a great favour in the form of thousands of reason/revelation websites. Apologists should select three to five sites on major topics such as evolution/creation, Bible/Science, Bible/Archaeology and other apologetic issues. None may ever visit all of them, but the large number of sites will ensure that all people will find sites that cater directly to their specific needs.
8- Encourage Ongoing Study: As mentioned earlier, most sincere inquirers need more than a one time exposure to Apologetics before a reasonable level of doubts are overcome. One good approach is be to subscribe to an apologetics magazine. A second one is be to subscribe to free electronic periodicals.Listening to audio lectures will be another highly beneficial approach. Since many compressed formats are available for audio, many websites now offer series of audio on Christian Apologetics . One should encourage one’s audience to download and listen. Scores of hours of audio can now be carried on a single disk or audio device and this capacity is only going to increase. The costs are also crashing down, bringing audio within everyone’s reach. Apologists should keep searching the net for the best Apologetics audio, and they should keep such information on give-away sheets of paper that interested people can pick up.
9- Do Appeal For A Verdict: Unless an apologetic presentation leads to decisions, all the hard work of the Apologist results in little benefit. Thus every public and private presentation should include an appeal for a verdict. This need not be similar to the traditional altar call, and it can be tailored to suit the more academic environment of Christian Apologetics. Many Apologists wrongly assume that a powerful defense of the Christian faith is sufficient to lead people to decisions. While a few who were on the verge of making a decision will automatically make a decision, the rest may not. Their rush to go back to homes and jobs, the continuous assault of a busy time-table or the demands of their profession can quickly push all of it out of their minds. Once that happens, there will be no "repeated exposure" and they will never get the full benefit of the Apologists’ labours. If the audience contains even a single unbeliever, Apologists must give an appeal to accept Christ as their Saviour. Believers should be challenged to build apologetics into their study and witnessing . The precise appeal would depend upon the audience, but you must definitely make a strong, powerful and even passionate appeal for a verdict.
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